He looked in the mirror. Scar tissue stood proud of his skin, a new landscape, the body repairing itself too well. The doctors had offered to remove it, but Inba had declined, he wanted the scars there to remind him. The scars were the manifestation of his memories. He traced his fingers over the flaking … Continue reading Chapter 4: Trauma (excerpt)

A sliver of light cut the darkness, a heartbeat in time with his own flowed through the crack in the void. The air was warm, his lungs fluttered, shallow breaths one after another. Warmth around him, comfort and security, swaddled like a new born. A thought half formed entered his stirring mind, playing over and … Continue reading Chapter 3 – Recovery

He dreams, the sky churns, rain sheets, a cauldron inverted, a thick boiling layer of cloud holding back the lightning and thunder that roils in its depth. Miles below he sees a battle field at the edge of a cliff, the dead and dying like scattered seeds sown in rich blood, dull glints of armor … Continue reading Chapter 2 – The Return

Each breath turned him inside out as his lungs struggled to keep pace. They were going to catch him, if he could just....then he saw it, the scaffolding rods only a few meters away. The shouts and growls from behind him felt like they were tugging at his ankles, trying to foul his footsteps. They … Continue reading Chapter 1: Part 2

Reality assaulted Inba as he heard a sharp, pulsing, high pitched tone, his eyes opening just a fraction. It was all he could manage as light blinded him, and then pain. So much pain, blooming like creepers with cruel thorns, constricting his senses, slicing at his veins. He wanted to scream, and he was screaming, … Continue reading Chapter 1: Trial by Fire

Well slap me silly and call me Gertrude – I fully enjoyed a YA fantasy novel. This does not happen very often.
J.M. Miller has crafted a story that may boast a few of the standard YA fantasy tropes – a “different” heroine who knows her way around a sword, some unrequited love that threatens to evolve into a love triangle – but she deftly outmanoeuvres many more. This story is relatively short with no waffly paragraphs describing repetitive and dull feelings, and at no point did I want to shake our heroine, Vala, by the shoulders for her stupidity.

Vala is the head guard of Prince Caulden of Garlin. She takes her duties very seriously, not least because she kind of fancies him. She’s also very different from anyone else on her island kingdom – her skin is scorched (I imagined it like charcoal or cooled lava) and burns…